Hi friends, if you visit different forums please forgive this repeat as it's at another site.

I have a dear friend who is struggling with depression, relationship stress, unemployment, and other challenges. She's a smart, nice person and ex-Catholic. She's a little bit leery about religion. She wrote to me and said she's been referred by her therapist to practice mindfulness and meditation.

I'm posting this in the "Discovering Theravada" forum because I'd like advice as to how I could help her, as a beginner to meditation, without being overtly Buddhist about it. Though of course, I am Buddhist. But I want to be careful and not be preachy with her and it's hard for me to think of meditation outside of a Buddhist context.

Try just waiting until she asks, what you tell her could also confuse her as she has someone qualified in a specific treatment method. one teacher at a time.

This offering maybe right, or wrong, but it is one, the other, both, or neither!Blog,-Some Suttas Translated,Ajahn Chah."Others will misconstrue reality due to their personal perspectives, doggedly holding onto and not easily discarding them; We shall not misconstrue reality due to our own personal perspectives, nor doggedly holding onto them, but will discard them easily. This effacement shall be done."

Ajahn Brahm has a book out called "Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond". The first few chapters deal with training the mind to stay in the present moment. I recall there isn't much overtly Buddhist about those chapters. Maybe give that a look and see if it would appeal to your friend.

Peter wrote:Ajahn Brahm has a book out called "Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond". The first few chapters deal with training the mind to stay in the present moment. I recall there isn't much overtly Buddhist about those chapters. Maybe give that a look and see if it would appeal to your friend.

Thanks Peter, I just got it at Amazon and it's being shipped to her. I hope it helps her. My friend always reads the books I send her.

Edited to add: She's not overly leery of religion; I sent her a wrist mala a few years ago and she still wears it every day. When I went on retreat last year she was totally fascinated about it.

Mindfulness meditation need not refer to any Buddhist theme.All she has to do is be in the moment.

If she seeks guidance, tell her to simply sit and watch her breath, but not think about sitting watching her breath.Just observe the action of her body, without thinking "My body is doing such-and-such"....Just to feel her clothing against her skin, as she breathes in, and as she breathes out, without any commentary as to how her clothing feels against her skin, as she breathes in and as she breathes out....

MIndfulness meditation is being where you are right now.

Tell me what I have mentioned above that could be called "preaching Buddhism".

Stating the obvious, what about Ven. Gunaratana's Mindfulness In Plain English?

It's about Buddhist meditation, of course, but I don't feel that it's over-the-top about "Buddhism" at all. Most of the book is nuts-and-bolts basic mindfulness training, and if one wanted to focus on that while putting aside the "Buddhist" parts I don't see why s/he couldn't learn quite a bit from this book.

"The serene and peaceful mind is the true epitome of human achievement."-- Ajahn Chah, Living Dhamma

"To reach beyond fear and danger we must sharpen and widen our vision. We have to pierce through the deceptions that lull us into a comfortable complacency, to take a straight look down into the depths of our existence, without turning away uneasily or running after distractions." -- Bhikkhu Bodhi

Tell her you heard from someone here on the forum who pointed out that having everything she''s lacking: good job, loving spouse, etc still did not preclude the onset of dangerous depression. Then I suggest you point out that anyone trying to find information about meditation and mindfulness will, in very short order, come face-to-face with Buddhism. When this happens, suggest she ask herself if she can believe in the first noble truth. Then ask if she can understand how the second noble truth does ring with common sense. If she can buy into the first two on the basis of their intuitive merit, what's the harm in giving the third and fourth noble truths a fair hearing.

It worked for me.

Regards: AdvaitaJ

The birds have vanished down the sky. Now the last cloud drains away.We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains. Li Bai

Tex wrote:Stating the obvious, what about Ven. Gunaratana's Mindfulness In Plain English?

It's about Buddhist meditation, of course, but I don't feel that it's over-the-top about "Buddhism" at all. Most of the book is nuts-and-bolts basic mindfulness training, and if one wanted to focus on that while putting aside the "Buddhist" parts I don't see why s/he couldn't learn quite a bit from this book.

Indeed...you, or she, can download it here...www.urbandharma.org/pdf/mindfulness_in_plain_english.pdf

Something that might be useful is The Art of Living by William Hart. The work is based on the Dhamma discourses given during SN Goenka's ten-day vipassana course. The presentation is light on the 'Buddhism' and is designed for the complete newbie and those hesitant about adopting a new religion. It might be available elsewhere as a download, but if not, its at reasonable cost via pariyatti:http://www.pariyatti.org/Bookstore/prod ... cfm?PC=742When I attended my teacher's centre in India in 89/90 it was published there for the first time and I returned home with 20 copies which I gave away to friends and family.Metta

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Thank you Bhante and Ben! Bhante, I like that link a lot. I'm going to talk to her in the next couple of days and see how she's doing with that first book I got her. The more suggestions the better, I can keep sending her books and she'll keep reading them!

"When we transcend one level of truth, the new level becomes what is true for us. The previous one is now false. What one experiences may not be what is experienced by the world in general, but that may well be truer. (Ven. Nanananda)

“I hope, Anuruddha, that you are all living in concord, with mutual appreciation, without disputing, blending like milk and water, viewing each other with kindly eyes.” (MN 31)